Customer Reviews

The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy: An Herbalist's Guide to Preparing Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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I think this is probably the single best book on how to get started with any kind of practical work, however, I have one complaint about it: The author shows you how to do everything with high-priced equipment, that you really don't have to have. The fact is that the ancient alchemists/spagyrists usually didn't have all that equipment, and it's probably smart to at least start off with simpler items before you invest a thousand dollars in this stuff. I think he would have done the art more justice if he had given lower-cost alternatives to the equipment in this book. Get this book, and supplement your reading with lots of material from Adam McLean's website, various alchemy forums and the Philosophers of Nature books if you have the money. Also question what all of them have to say, and compare, because all of them have their quirks.

Junius' Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy is one of the finest and most complete books on working with plants from an alchemical perspective (or spagyrics) available today. It is filled with information and experiments that will take years if not lifetimes to exhaust. Extensive instructions take you through the process of making tinctures, plant stones, elixirs, the plant magistry of Paracelsus, and the Lesser or Minor Circulation for the preperation of elixirs. All of the work can be done with a few pieces of easily obtained laboratory equipment that can be used with inexpensive electric or gas heating sources. It is a book you will want two copies of - one for your bookshelf and the second for your laboratory. Required reading - and doing - for anyone serious about undertaking an alchemical journey.

Originally published in Italian in 1985, this classic work deals with the spyragic process, by which, through separation, purification and recombination, a spyragist (parachemist, or alchemist, take your pick) enhances and amplifies the essential and intrinsic effects of an herb. While incorporating quite a bit of ayurvedic philosophy, it's still a text firmly rooted in Western alchemical techniques and practice, and walks the aspiring student through the spyragic process, step by step, along with herbal planetary correspondence tables which go quite a bit beyond the over-simplified Cabbalistic correspondences of the current New Age stream of thought.

The equipment specified for practice is, indeed, bona fide scientific apparati, which causes some concern on the part of other readers as to the expense. However, Dr. Junius was indeed a scientist, and head of research at various labs and technical institutes, and therefore chose to rely on precise, quality apparati. While there may be some applications of the spyragic processes detailed within that could be performed "on the cheap", by and large the higher the quality, precision and applicability of the instrument, the better the resultant spyragic. I would highly recommend that any aspiring spyragist (or alchemist) do a brief web search for discount laboratory equipment suppliers. There is an abundance out there, and for a few hundred dollars the enhanced results are definitely worth it.

With the rise of serious interest in alternative medicine and the western occult, there is a need for a good, relatively clear introduction to practical alchemy. This is it. This book explains the equipment you need and proposes a theory of alchemy which reveals real respect for the ancient texts- though as the title promises there is little here on the work with metals. If you want a detailed or scholarly history of Alchemy you will have to look elsewhere, but this book is essential for anyone interested in the work itself *or* in herbal medicine.

There's no need to pay inflated prices for this out of print version by Manfred Junius, it has been reprinted as Spagyrics: The Alchemical Preparation of Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs.

I recently began taking some natural medicines along with my husband, so I thought I would try making my own. Though I am still in the early stages, I feel confident that The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy has given me a solid base from which to start.

Great book. Worthy of anyone's time that is interested in learning more about the different types of herbs out there, what they do and how to create your own daily supplements.

This book systematically presents both the theory and philosophy of spagyrics and the corporeal application of said philosophy in an accesible proletarian manner, perfectly fit for the lay-seeker who isn't attuned to the sometimes involute terminology that attends dated alchemical manscripts. There are countless exserts from spagyric texts from such illustrious illumined exponents as Johannes Isaac Hallandus, Paracelsus, Basilius Valentinus (and more) which are generally followed by a delicatessen recapitulation by Manfred M. Junius, who breaks it down into manageable simple terms. Don't despair, for those tyros going into this book not knowing a lick of the ideas and axioms of the alchemical work will most unequivocally come out transmuted into knowledgable cognoscente of the natural science of Khem. Rove hand-in-hand with Paracelsus collecting morning dew from the manorial sward of your higher genius.

One of the most informative how-to's of herbalism

I havent read this book, but I am very doubful, if this really about alchemy. I heard, that laboratory equipment, that author proposes, is very expensive and thats not a case of alchemy. Alchemy in its essence need very simple and nonexpensive instruments. There exist fundamental difference between spagyrics and alchemy and that fact many people dont realize.